The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1887-05-18
a VISIT TO TENNYsoN.
oliver Wendell Holiness Trip to the
Isle of Wight.
rAtlantIc Monthly.l

saw the poet to the best advantage, under
his own trees and walking over his own do
main. He took delight in pointing out to me
the finest and the rarest of his trees,-and
there were many beauties among them. l
recalled my mornings visit to Whittier at
Oak Knoll. in Danvers, a little more than
year ago, when he led me to Que of his fayo-
rites, an aspiring evergreen which shot up
like flame. thought Of the graceful Amer
lean elms in front of Longfellow's house,
and the sturdy English elms that stand in
front of Lowelps. In this garden of England,
the Isle of Wight, where everything grows
with such lavish extravaganza of green
ness that it seems as if it must bankrupt the
soil before autumn, / felt as if weary eyes
and overtasked brains might reach their
happiest haven Of rest. We all remember
Shenstone's epigram ON the pane of tavern
window. If we find our "warmest welcome
at an inn" we find our most soothing com
partnership in the trees among which we
have lived, some of which we may ourselves
have planted. We lean against them, and
they never betray our trust; they shield us
from the sun and from the rain; their spring
welcome is new birth, which never loses
its freshness; they lay their beautiful robes
at our feet in autumn in winter they 'stand
and watt emblems of patience and of truth,
for they hide nothing, not even the little leaf
buds which hint to us Of hope, the last ele-
ment in their triple symbolism.
This depression, suggested by the remem-
brance OF the poet under his trees, breaks
my narrative, but gives me the opportunity
of paying debt Of gratitude. For / have
owned many beautiful trees, and loved many
more outside of my own leafy harem. Those
who write verses have no special claim to be
lovers of trees, but so far as one is Of the po-
etlcal temperament he is like to be q tree
lover. Poets have, as a rule, more than the
average nervous sensibility and irritability
Trees have no nerves. They live and die
without suffering, without self questioning
or self reproach. They have the div inc gift
Oh silence. They cannot Obtrude upon the
solitary moments when one is to himself the
most agreeable of companions. The whole
vegetable world, even ''the meanest flower
that blows is lovely to contemplate. What
If creation had paused there, and you or
had been called upon to decide whether self
conscious life should be added in the form of
the existing animal creation, and the hither-
to peaceful universe should come under the
rule OF Nature as we now know her,
"red in tooth and claw?
Are we not glad that the responsibility Of
the decision did not rest on us?
l am sorry that did not ask Tennyson to
read or repeat some of his own lines to me.
Hardly any one perfectly understands a po-
EN- but the poet himself One naturally
loves his own poem as no one else can. 1t
fits the mental mould in which it was cast.
and it will not exactly fit any other. For
this reason / had rather listen to poet read
ing his own verses than hear the best elocu-
ZIONIST that ever spouted recite them. lie
may not have good voice or enunciation,
but he puts his heart and his inter-penetra-
tive Intelligence into every line, word, and
syllable, l should have.liked to hear Tenny-
son read such lines as
'Laborious orient ivory, sphere in spheres"
and in spite of my good friend Matthew
Arnold an terTorea, should have liked to
hear Macaulay read,
'And Aulus the Dictator
Smoothed Auster's raven NAME"
and other good mouthable lines. from the
Lays of Ancient Rome" Not less should
like to hear Mr.. Arnold himself read the pas
sage beginning
SIN his cool hall with haggard ewes
The Roman noble lay"